That was the problem with human failings – they were often more visible to others than to those whom they afflicted.
That was the marvelous thing about going back to one’s roots; there was no need for explanation.
That sent her friends to the dictionary, which gave her additional satisfaction. To dispatch one's friends to a dictionary from time to time is one of the more sophisticated pleasures of life, but it...
That place is the place we have always been, and if you think that where you have been is where you should be, then why go to another place that you do not know at all and may not be as good as the pl...
That is why the artist will always be happy—no matter how the world treats him. If he knows that what he creates is good, then he can bear the indifference of others.
She wondered whether there was any way of getting him to take the pills by trickery. She did not like the idea of using underhand methods with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, but when a person's reason was distu...
She was thinking of Mobile, where her mother—her sainted American mother, as she called her—had spent her childhood. That was a place of shady streets; of moss that hung from the boughs of trees, as i...
She said that too. His voice was low key and modest. The accent, which was not very pronounced, had the gentle burr of the Scottish professional classes. This was an accent that would score highly in...
She could turn away and say that they had nothing to do with her, or she could accept that they had somehow touched her skirt. ...we all had a skirt, and those who touched our skirt became our concern...
Regularity without some metaphysical value behind it, some beauty of soul or character, was more disappointing – and indeed repulsive – than the honestly haphazard, the humanly messy.
Preserve’ is an entirely suitable motto for a jam-making company, said one. Marmalade and so on—I’m not so sure it’s quite right for a firm of lawyers.
Perhaps one day she would find a place where she would stay. That would be good. To know that the place you were in was your own place—where you should be.
Perhaps if you don't know there's a gap, you don't worry about it. If you were a millipede, a , crawling along the ground would you look at the birds and worry about not having wings? Probably not.
People with something to hide wore sunglasses indoors. They were the ones you had to watch very carefully.
People were forever digging up events that had taken place a long time ago. And what was the point in doing this if the effect was merely to poison the present? There were many wrongs in the past, but...
People punish themselves—sometimes for years. But it’s not always necessary. Forgiveness allows everybody to start again, not to be burdened with a whole lot of old business.
Penury was a matter of hard chairs and mean cushions; prosperity—old money—was a matter of feathers: an absurd reductionist view of it, but at times quite strikingly true.
Number 1, read Dr Fairbairn. People making me do things I don’t want to do. I hate this. I hate this. Every day I have to do things that other people want me to do and it leaves me no time to do any o...
No, the idea of a benevolent god was very much an exception in the enormous pantheon of gods that people had invented over the course of human history.
No buts, Bertie. If you don’t keep your promise then you’ll get into serious trouble. Big time. You could go to prison, and then what? And there’s God too. God watches these things and if he sees you...